Female Factory Cascades from the east, 1880 - 1920, courtesy of Tasmanian Images: Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office.
Details
The Cascades House of Correction opened in the former Female Factory at Cascades, South Hobart, in 1856. It housed the children of the prisoners living there as well as children who were orphaned or neglected and waiting for transferral to Queen's Asylum or the boarding-out system. Between 1869 and 1876, the Boys' Reformatory was also on the site. The House of Correction closed in about 1877.
The Cascades House of Correction was on the site of the Cascades Female Factory. Its main purpose was to accommodate women who had received their sentences in Tasmania. During the 1860s, it became less of a gaol and more of an invalid depot for aging and destitute former convicts.
In 1870, a Mercury article referred to a children's refuge at the site of the Cascades House of Correction. It accommodated children whose parents had deserted them or were prisoners. This appears to be the same establishment that the English social reformers and advocates of the boarding-out system, Florence and Rosamund Hill, saw when they visited the site in 1874. In their book What we saw in Australia, they wrote that about 18 children, 'all very little', lived there in a separate section to the prisoners. One of the prisoners looked after the children. They attended school on the site.
Sources used to compile this entry: 'Editorial', The Mercury, 15 September 1870, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8869597; Hill, Rosamund Davenport and Hill Florence Davenport, What we saw in Australia, Macmillan and Co, London, 1875, 438 pp, http://archive.org/details/whatwesawinaustr00hilliala; Scripps, L. and Hudspeth, A, The Female Factory Historic Site: Historical Report, unpublished report for Department of Parks, Wildlife and Heritage, 1992.
Prepared by: Caroline Evans
Created: 27 October 2011, Last modified: 23 October 2018
Last updated: 18 January 2023
Cite this: https://www.findandconnect.gov.au/ref/tas/biogs/TE00247b.htm
First published by the Find & Connect Web Resource Project for the Commonwealth of Australia, 2011
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